Thursday, December 1, 2016

UPATE: Did dinosaurs and humans co-exist? Flier at USAFA says yes.

We have not received any complaints regarding the publication you reference. The clinic staff did not place the publication in the waiting area nor are they aware of how it may have been placed there. Often, patients will leave magazines in waiting areas after they have finished reading them. Additionally, the publication you sent us is not a USAFA publication.

———————-ORIGINAL POST 12:19 P.M., THURS., DEC. 1, 2016———————-

When did Dinosaurs roam the planet?

According to Discovery News, which is described by the newspaper itself as "A publication of Significant Archeological Discoveries and Biblical Truths," dinosaurs and humans co-mingled on planet Earth.

This defies all scientific research, which has long concluded that dinosaurs went extinct some 65 millions year ago and that homo sapiens didn't emerge until about 200,000 years ago.

But Discovery News champions the co-existent theory to under cut evolution, citing on its website that a revelation that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time would support the claim "that all species, including man, were created at one time."

What you read in your living room is your business, but when this kind of drivel is distributed at the Air Force Academy, it gets people's attention.

One retired Air Force officer encountered the publication during a visit to the academy's ophthalmology clinic and reported it to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, saying:

Most distressing about this situation is that previously on two appointments I had ignored Christian proselytizing materials found there leaving them in situ, but this was just too much.

Here we have the “Discovery News”, that someone has placed in the waiting area, on top of the other magazines, with the obvious intent
that someone could be attracted to its colorful front page and then see a creationist set of ridiculous myths that through a series of contortionist pseudo-science set of disproven facts proves the bible is to be believed verbatim, that is through a series of cartoon panels that Jesus died for your sins.

I have never been so offended in my life and decided at that moment to pick this piece of silliness up and throw it away with the same fervor that it had been placed there. Who did put it there? Was it a member of the staff? Do the doctors of the 10th Medical Group all believe Earth is clearly less than 100,000 years old? I wanted to take this cartoonish piece of propaganda into the Doctors’ office where my wife was being treated and ask the Doctor, “DO YOUR REALLY BELIEVE THIS?” And
then follow up with, “OK, then why do you allow it to be in your waiting room?”

Does Gen [Michelle] Johnson [academy superintendent] refute 100s of years of careful science and contort herself into allow the teaching of creationism in the USAF clinic because of fundamentalist evangelical Christian beliefs?

The purpose of the visit was medical care, not a defense of the theory of evolution against creationism. I also worry we’d get treated differently if they knew we didn’t share their same beliefs about the
world being created in six days and people and dinosaurs walked around together and (fill in the blank). That's why I'm coming to the MRFF.

Of course, MRFF's founder and chief executive Mikey Weinstein wasted no time in putting the word out.

We've asked the academy to address allowing this type of literature on its campus and will circle back when we hear something.

Let’s just be very clear here. Allowing this Christo-centric religious supremacy to fester and bloom, indeed encouraging and nourishing such sectarian evil, is a felony violation under the Uniform Code of Military Justice....

MRFF has had a stern, clarion call “Parental Advisory” out for a number of years about the Air Force Academy warning all concerned of this perpetual, unconstitutional, Christian triumphalism disgrace. These latest two outrageous instances of the proselytizing — an Air Force Academy cadet in his uniform on You Tube and now the USAF Academy Medical Clinic permitting the very visible and public distribution of anti-evolution, anti-Big bang, “Young Earth”, fundamentalist Christian mythology — only serve to boundlessly buttress MRFF’s warnings to every caring and thinking person to carefully avoid this place of bitter religious oppression.

The flier at the academy clinic said that Discovery Ministries International is located in Divide and is looking for help distributing its news to hospital waiting rooms, doctors' offices, VA clinics, nursing homes, restaurants, motels, truck stops, schools, etc.